Ed Orgeron can become serious candidate for USC with win over Notre Dame

USC interim football coach Ed Orgeron has a chance to be a serious candidate for the position should the Trojans defeat Notre Dame on Saturday and continue to play well under his watch. Photo by Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press

USC coach Ed Orgeron’s stock is at a peak this week after winning his debut over Arizona with a fired-up team that said it would do anything for him.

But Orgeron will be revered even more if he defeats traditional archrival Notre Dame on Saturday, which would give him a place in history. Only two USC coaches won their inaugural meeting with the Irish in 84 games between the schools.

With a victory, it will make it even harder for USC athletic director Pat Haden to not give Orgeron serious consideration when he hires a new coach after the season.

“Sure,” Haden said matter-of-factly when asked if Orgeron is a candidate.

But when pressed what Orgeron needed to accomplish to actually become USC’s coach, Haden said, “It’s only been a week.”

But if Haden is noncommittal about Orgeron’s future, he gushed about Orgeron in other areas that came across as a compliment to the longtime USC assistant as well as criticism of former coach Lane Kiffin.

“It wasn’t just the game and the way the energy was different, all week you felt it,” Haden said.

Orgeron might not be doing it deliberately, but his success seems predicated on being the anti-Kiffin.

When he discussed going to Notre Dame, Orgeron said, “We’re going to have fun. We’ll keep it light. One heartbeat. One team.”

“Fun” and “light” were not words in the Kiffin dictionary, especially when he was about to face one of USC’s top rivals. But this is where Orgeron might have his best chance to win over Haden to be the Trojans’ next coach.

USC dominated Notre Dame during the Pete Carroll era, winning eight straight games from 2002-09. The Irish were hardly formidable in 2010 when Kiffin lost his first meeting, 20-16.

Kiffin used an ultra-conservative game plan with backup quarterback Mitch Mustain even though he said before the game he could call every play in the playbook that he used with Matt Barkley. After the season, Kiffin said he “screwed up” that game.

In his six games with Notre Dame and UCLA, Kiffin was 3-3. If Orgeron can steal a victory in South Bend and upset UCLA at the Coliseum in November, his popularity would be so high it would be intriguing to see how Haden bypasses him.

Imagine a scenario where Washington coach Steve Sarkisian, who went 7-6 three times with the Huskies, is hired over Orgeron, who can boast victories over Notre Dame and UCLA. Or how former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, with no college coaching experience, is hired over Orgeron.

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That would hardly please the boosters who were already unhappy with Kiffin the past three seasons. And the big donors do make their presence felt at USC. One showed up at practice as soon as Orgeron was hired after refusing to attend during Kiffin’s era and advocating his removal last winter.

Expectations were so low following the loss to Arizona State that Orgeron’s win over Arizona emboldened the program that slowly wilted the first five games.

“It was like a boot camp before,” said a freshman who did not wish to be identified. “It was definitely not what I expected. It was weird.”

Although quarterback Cody Kessler said people told him he “threw Kiffin under the bus” with his comments praising Orgeron after the Arizona game, pretty much every other player echoed Kessler.

“You have to have players that want to play for the coach,” safety Dion Bailey said in a quote that got far less attention because it wasn’t said in front of 30 reporters.

Orgeron gave the players a cajun dinner Wednesday following up on one of his early comments that if “you give a lineman a cookie, he’s happy.”

The happier he keeps the players, the better they play. And the better the play, the better chance Orgeron has of keeping the job.

That seemed like an outlandish possibility two weeks ago. But with offensive coordinator Clay Helton clearly tweaking the playbook and Orgeron pressing all the right buttons as a relaxed leader, his chances keep increasing.

All he has to do is keep winning. That’s the only thing Haden will worry about in December.